So one morning I lay under a tree waiting for parrots to come. A few flocks passed over us, uttering peculiar sounds. What these meant I could not tell, but they were afraid to alight. Evidently they did not like the look of the house.
At some distance from Rogala's house near a grove of plantain trees was a tree bearing a red fruit which I knew parrots liked very much. I told Rogala to carry his wife's parrot under that tree and I would lie in wait there. So Ngozo was taken there by his master, and he began to talk.
Soon I heard above our heads a flock of parrots. They came down upon our tree and began to talk to our parrot and feed. When I saw three or four in such a position as to enable me to kill them all, I fired, and they fell, and the others, shrieking with all their might, flew away in affright.
I went after the parrots, which had deep yellow rings round their eyes. I saw that they were very old, but nevertheless I was glad, for I would have some meat to eat. I broiled one on charcoal. When he was cooked, he was so tough that I thought he must be over one hundred years old. It seemed as if I were biting an old piece of India rubber or a piece of leather.
In the evening, thinking that the others were as tough as their companions, I boiled them, and I thought that I was going to have a good parrot soup. The soup was not bad, but the parrots were so tough that I gave up trying to eat them.
The following morning we again put the parrot under the tree, and a flock alighted in the same way, and I succeeded in killing two of them.
In the afternoon another flock alighted also, and I killed two more. But after this no parrots came near us, though a number of flocks flew over our tree and Ngozo called to them.
All the flocks of parrots meet every evening, and the flocks that had been fired at had warned their fellow ngozos of their danger and to take good care not to alight on that tree.
After this the flocks of parrots, as they passed above or near us, took care to fly high, uttering shrill cries of anger.
One day while I was stuffing some birds I had killed in the morning, and Rogala was looking at the work I was doing with great astonishment, Shinshooko made his appearance. He was out of breath, for he had been running fast. As he saw us, he shouted: "Jockoo! Jockoo! Elephants! Elephants!"